Survey: Passengers most annoyed by lost taxi drivers

One in three taxi passengers have said that drivers with poor local knowledge are their biggest irritation, according to a survey.

The findings come as the Big Switch campaign, which previously sought to get lower health insurance and energy prices for its members, is now looking to get cheaper taxi fares for the public.

The Big Switch says that if it reaches its target membership of 10,000 people for its latest campaign, it will negotiate group discounted taxi fares from emerging competitors in the Taxi App market.

To coincide with the campaign, The Big Switch has surveyed 1,500 of its members to find out what their biggest taxi irritations are, with one in three citing lost drivers as their top irritant.

The survey also found that one in five consumers classed unclean taxis as a serious irritation for them, while one in 10 consumers regarded anti-social taxi drivers as their biggest pet peeve.

“The message is clear from consumers, read up on your local knowledge, keep your car clean and stop swearing at us,” said the Big Switch director of campaigns Sarah Ryan.

“We’ve all been in that situation where we’ve had to ask ‘where are you going?’.

“For tourists, it can be frustrating, for the rest of us it means more time, more money and can just be plain awkward,” she said.

Early results from the survey, which will run until March 1, also found that 65% of consumers agreed when asked that the deregulation of taxis has resulted in an improvement of the industry, and that four out of five of those agreeing said that improved taxi availability is the most significant improvement.

Of those surveyed who didn’t agree with the proposition that deregulation had improved the industry, 48% believed that taxis were now more expensive and a further 30% believed that deregulation has resulted in a reduction of the experience of the overall taxi trip.

“Consumers are definitely happy with the improved availability of taxis but point to cost as one place that deregulation has fallen down,” Ms Ryan said.

“Our survey is aimed at getting a better understanding of what consumers want from their taxis.

“We are a nation obsessed with them,” she said.

One Big Switch launched in Ireland in February 2014 with the Big Energy Switch, a campaign to negotiate group discounted electricity and gas to which it claims over 64,000 households have signed up.

The campaign group later presented a Water Charges Submission on behalf of more than 4,000 of its members who had contributed to it and campaigned for cheaper health insurance premiums for those who signed up to the campaign.